Region just misses 100 degrees
Monday’s blistering heat fell just short of the triple-digit mark, but it still put a strain on energy consumption and curbed outdoor activity around the Quad-City region.
The official high temperature reached 97 degrees at 3:38 p.m. at the Quad-City International Airport near Moline. That was three degrees short of the forecasted 100-degree mark, according to meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Davenport.
“Last year at this time we’d hit 100 degrees twice already and we’ve only hit it once this month,” meteorologist Bill Elliott said. “We are warmer than average, but it’s not by as much as people think.”
Factoring in the humidity produced heat indexes in the 100- to 110-degree range, he added.
The conditions sent 17 people to Quad-City hospitals for treatment of heat-related illnesses Monday.
Genesis Medical Center treated 16 patients, nine of them at its Illini campus in Silvis, Ill. One person was treated at the Trinity Medical Center-7th Street Campus, Moline.
Craig Cooper, a spokesman for Genesis, said an 11-year-old child and six people older than 65 years were treated there.
“It follows statistics,” he said. “The youngest and the oldest are typically the most vulnerable to the heat.”
Kelly McKay, an emergency room nurse at Trinity Medical Center-West Campus, Rock Island, said that in addition to heat exhaustion and heatstroke, the weather is increasing the number of respiratory illnesses.
“We’ve had a lot more asthma patients and people with difficulty breathing,” she said. “They have an increased histamine response to the humidity. People with lung problems and asthma really need to be in the air conditioning.”
There was some good news in the ER, however. The extreme heat is keeping many folks indoors and engaged in safer activities.
“We’re seeing less outdoor activity-related injuries — sports injuries and things,” she said. “We’ve had much worse days when the weather is nicer and people are out and about.”
MidAmerican Energy Co. set an all-time high for peak usage Monday afternoon with 4,310 megawatts, company spokesman Allan Urlis said. That is 2.5 percent above the previous high set on July 17, also a Monday.
MidAmerican has 706,000 residential and industrial customers in Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota. The utility has added 8,000 customers since 2005, Urlis said.
Though demand is high, there is little concern about the type of brownouts and rolling blackouts that have plagued California happening here in the Midwest, he said.
“We’re closer to our generating sources and our transmission system is not as constrained as it is on the East and West coasts,” he said. “At MidAmerican, we have excess capacity of 15 to 20 percent above our all-time heat demand, so we’re in a good circumstance.”
Elliott said the heat wave that began late last week will continue today with another high in the upper 90s predicted. But Wednesday brings a 30 percent chance of rain and slightly lower temperatures — a high only in the lower 90s. A cold front will move in sometime Wednesday, delivering a chance of thunderstorms, especially that night, and cooler, seasonal temperatures in the middle to upper 80s Thursday through Sunday, he said.
Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com.